Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

Author(s): Paul Bohannan

Reviewed work(s):
Source: American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 57, No. 1, Part 1 (Feb., 1955), pp. 60-70
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/665788 .
Accessed: 29/01/2013 17:10
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Wiley and American Anthropological Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to American Anthropologist.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

SomePrinciplesof Exchangeand Investment

amongtheTiv'
PAUL BOHANNAN
OxfordUniversity

are a pagan people numbering over 800,000 who live in the middle
Benue Valley of northern Nigeria. The basis of their economy is subsistence agriculture; supplemented by an effective network of markets particularly in the southern and central portions of their country. Tiv pride themselves
on their farming abilities and their subsistence wealth.
Today, however, their ideas of economic exchange and their traditional
methods of investment and economic aggrandizement are being undermined
by a new economic system which demands different actions, motives and ideas.
This article deals with: (I) Tiv ideas of exchange as expressed in their language,
(II) some traditional modes of investment and exchange, based on a ranked
hierarchy of spheres or categories of exchangeable commodities, and (III) the
impact of Western economy on such aspects of subsistence, exchange and investment which Tiv consider in terms of these spheres or categories.

TIV

I
Distribution of goods among Tiv falls into two spheres: a "market," on
the one hand, and gifts, on the other.
The several words best translated "gift" apply-besides the cases which
we in the West would recognize as "gift"-to exchange over a long period of
time between persons or groups in a more or less permanent relationship. The
gift may be a factor designed to strengthen the relationship, or even to create
it. There are several Tiv words for "gift," the examination of which would
require another article the length of this one. For our purposes, it is primary
that any of these "gift" words implies a relationship between the two parties
concerned which is of a permanence and warmth not known in a "market,"
and hence-though "gifts" should be reciprocal over a long period of time-it is
bad form overtly to count and compute and haggle over gifts.
A "market" is a transaction which in itself calls up no long-term personal
relationship, and which is therefore to be exploited to as great a degree as possible. In fact, the presence of a previous relationship makes a "good market"
impossible: people do not like to sell to kinsmen since it is bad form to demand
as high a price from a kinsman as one might from a stranger. Market behavior
and kinship behavior are incompatible in a single relationship, and the individual must give way to one or the other.
The word "market" (kasoa) has several meanings in Tiv. It refers primarily
to any transaction which is differentiated from gift exchange (and, as we shall
see, from exchange marriage). It is also a meeting of people at a regular place
and time for the primary purpose of exchanging food and other items. One's
"market" is also an aspect of one's luck (ik81)-some people have "good market
60

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

[BOHANNAN]

Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

61

[luck]" and some have "bad market [luck]." Therefore, one's market can be
affected by one's ritual condition, for fetishes (akombo)-not to mention witches
(mbatsav)-can spoil a man's market (viki or kasoa); indeed, curses and broken
promises can also affect a person's market.
Everything, including women, which is exchanged has an exchange value or
equivalent (ishe), whereas no gift has an exchange value. In a market situation
ishe means vaguely "exchange equivalent"-one might even sometimes translate it "price"-though Tiv seldom ask or quote equivalents in their own
trading. Rather, they effect bargains, usually without recourse to this word.
An expensive item is a "thing of great value" or "thing of high equivalent"
(kwagh u keheiske), and to haggle is to dispute the value or equivalent (kperen
ishe). The general term both for economic trading and for exchange marriage
can be translated roughly as "trading value" (yamen iske).
In every market transaction, there is a man who sells (te) and a man who
buys (yam). These words must be carefully examined for they do not exactly
parallel their English equivalents. Te means to spread something out on the
ground to the public view, as in a market place. By extension, it means "to
sell"-there is no other way to say "to sell," and no other verb to designate
that half of an exchange in which one releases or gets rid of an article. Yam,
on the other hand, means "trade" in the widest sense, but refers primarily to
that half of the exchange in which one takes or gains an article. It can, therefore, often be translated by the English word "buy." Its difference, however,
can be seen in sentences such as "I bought money with it" (m yam inyaregh a
mi-more accurately translated "I realized money on it," and still more accurately but less literally, "In this exchange what I received was money").
Activities of traders are called yamen a yam; exchange marriage is often called
"woman trading" (kwase yamen) or, more politely, "value trading" (ishe
yamen).
Although Tiv have a word which means approximately the same as the
English word "exchange" (musan), which can sometimes be used to differentiate barter from money transactions, this word is not ordinarily used of trade
or commerce.
II
Within the bounds of these words and basic concepts, Tiv image and communicate their ideas of economic transactions and investments. It is important
to realize, however, that the ideas themselves may never be articulated as
principles or as logical systems. The systematization may be, as in this case,
the work of the ethnographer. Yet, this systematization is-or at least is consistent with-the Tiv covert ideology in the matter; its empirical validity is
demonstrated when, in terms of it, the ethnographer can both sensibly discuss
the ideas and images with Tiv in their language, and communicate them in another language to his colinguals and colleagues.
It is in these terms that we can say that in Tiv ideology it is neither usual
nor desirable to exchange a commodity for just any other commodity. Rather,

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

62

American Anthropologist

[57, 1955

there are several different categories of interchangeable commodities and items,

each of which is felt to be more or less exclusive. It seems to be necessary to distinguish three such categories.
The most apparent category of exchangeable items among Tiv consists
primarily of foodstuffs (yiagh). All locally produced foodstuffs (imported, particularly European, food is not yiagh) are said by Tiv to be of a single economic
kind, and immediately interchangeable. To trade pepper for locust-bean sauce
or yams for guinea corn is a common transaction or "market" among Tiv.
The quantities to be exchanged are never prescribed,2as they are in some societies-the bargain which any individual may drive within the sphere of foodstuffs is a reflection of the market aspect of his luck. If I, selling pepper, can
get locust beans of a quality and quantity whose value I myself consider to be
greater than the value of the pepper I gave for them, my market is good; if I
get less, my market is bad-or, more commonly, the market of the other person is better than mine. The obvious advantage of such a line of reasoning is
that, in really successful transactions, everybody's market is good.
Included within this same category are chickens and goats, as well as household utensils (mortars, grindstones, calabashes, baskets and pots) and some
tools (particularly those used in agricultural pursuits), and also raw materials
for producing any items in the category. For a woman to sell yams to buy a
pot, for her to make a pot and sell it to buy yams-these are considered to be
normal buying and selling (yamen a yam).
The second important category is that which includes slaves, cattle, that
type of large white cloth known as tugudu, and metal bars. One is still entitled
to use the present tense in this case, for ideologically the category still exists
in spite of the fact that brass rods are today very rare, and that slavery has
been legally abolished. Tiv still quote prices of slaves in cows and brass rods,
and of cattle in brass rods and tugudu cloths. Akiga, in a hitherto untranslated part of his book, tells us that,
You could buy one iron bar (sokpo)for a tuguducloth. In those days five tugudu
cloths were equivalentto a bull! A cow was worth ten tugudu.One brass rod (bashi)
was worthabout the sameas one tuguducloth; thus five brassrods werewortha
bull.
Other Tiv would disagree about the actual values of these various commodities.3 The value of the brass rod is said by all to have declined considerably
just before the arrival of Europeans in Tivland. None, however, would disagree with Akiga's grouping of commodities.
This second category is associated with prestige (shagba) in the same way
that the first category is associated with subsistence. Although slaves and
brass rods, at least, had some economic value beyond their value as prestigeconferring property, this latter was their main use.
The supreme and unique category of exchange values contains only one
item: rights in human beings other than slaves, and particularly rights in
women. Even twenty-five years after official abolition of exchange marriage,
it is this category of exchange in which Tiv are emotionally most entangled

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOHANNAN]

Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

63

(L. and P. Bohannan 1953: 69-71). All exchanges within this category are exchanges of rights in human beings, usually dependent women and children,
so that the category may be called the category of dependent persons, and
many of its values are expressed in terms of kinship and marriage.
This plan or scheme leaves out several important items of Tiv material
culture: particularly weapons, specialists' tools like divining apparatus, etc.,
which do not, generally speaking, enter into exchange situations. Since I have
no record of hearing these items discussed in a situation of exchange, I have
no basis for assigning them to one category or another-indeed, I doubt that
Tiv would do so. My purpose in reporting these categories is not the pedantic
one of putting every commodity into one or the other; rather, the categories
represent the fundamentals of Tiv notions of exchange and investment.
Further, several items which we consider as exchangeable wealth, and as
bases for investment, are not included by Tiv in this system of thought. Services and labor, for example, are by and large reciprocal and form part of the
age-set, kinship and domestic group structures and moralities. Tiv consider it
rude and improper to discuss services in terms of "exchange" but insist rather
that such matters be viewed as individual acts of generosity or as kinship or
age-set obligations. They recognize the reciprocity, of course, but do not themselves cast it into terms which we would consider "economic." Land, which
many peoples-including, perhaps, ourselves-consider to be the ultimate
wealth, is not exchangeable among Tiv, not even for other land. Land is, to
Tiv, the spatial aspect of social organization; land rights are conditions of
agnation. It is impossible for a Tiv to invest in land, since his basic right in
land is a right to sufficient land, and only secondarily a right to specific lands.
No Tiv can control more land than he can use. (Both land rights and labor are
discussed at some length in Bohannan 1954.) Therefore, it should be noted,
we are dealing with Tiv exchange and investment, but Tiv notions cover only
a part of the range to which the English words "exchange" and "investment"
refer.
It is instructive of Tiv modes of thought about these three main categories
of exchangeable items to note the manner in which individual items can be
"removed" from the categories, or made incapable of further exchange. Individual items are removed from the category of subsistence by expenditure, including sacrifice to fetishes. Although yams have an exchange value as well as
a utilitarian value, once eaten they no longer have either. Household equipment breaks or is worn out. All items which are removed from this sphere of
exchangeable goods are removed either by being used up or by being sacrificed
(and subsequently used up).
Removing individual items from the second category-that centering
around prestige--is more complex, and its very complexity makes possible
some of the characteristics of Tiv economy. Some individual items-clothbe recan be removed by expenditure; other individual items-slaves-can
moved by death of human beings. Most of the items, however, are removed
by an act which increases the prestige of the owner of the item by diminishing

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

64

American Anthropologist

[57, 1955

its utility or exchangeability. Thus, brass rods can be converted into jewelry,
thereby increasing the prestige of ownership but diminishing the range of
utility; cows can be butchered on festive occasions (cattle are never sacrificed
for religious purposes among Tiv), thereby increasing the prestige of the owner
but diminishing the utility of the commodity and nullifying its exchangeability.
Individual items are removed from the third category-that of rights in
dependent persons-by death of the human beings, and by death alone.
The three chief categories of exchangeable items among Tiv, while considered of equal practical importance, are nevertheless arranged in a hierarchy
on the basis of moral values. The category of prestige is superior to (but no
more important than) the category of subsistence; great prestige assumes adequate or ample subsistence means. The category of dependent persons is superior to (but no more important than) the categories both of prestige and of
subsistence. A large number of dependent persons, demonstrating success in
attracting, getting, and keeping dependents, assumes adequate or ample prestige and subsistence goods. But, conversely, many dependents give one prestige
and enable one to produce ample and generous amounts of subsistence wealth.
The moral basis of the hierarchy is evident in the fact that the ethics of
kinship are more compelling than the ethics of mere prestige (and always take
precedence-ideally one must always sacrifice prestige or hope of gain to aid
a kinsman); the ethics of prestige are more compelling than the mores of markets and exchange of subsistence wealth-a man forgoes gain in subsistence
wealth for the sake of prestige or to fulfill kinship obligations.
The hierarchal nature of the values involved in the three main categories of
exchangeable goods provides a basis for investment and economic endeavor in
Tiv society. The drive toward success leads most Tiv, to the greatest possible
extent, to convert food into prestige items; to convert prestige items into dependents-wives and children. Tiv say that it is good (do kwagh) to trade food
for brass rods, but that it is bad (vihi kwagh) to trade brass rods for food; that
it is good to trade your cows or brass rods for a wife, but very bad to trade
your marriage ward for cows or brass rods. Seen from the individual's point
of view, it is profitable and possible to invest one's wealth only if one converts
it into a higher category: to convert subsistence wealth into prestige wealth
and both into women is the aim of the economic endeavor of individual Tiv.
That Tiv do conceptualize exchange articles as belonging to different categories, and that they rank the categories on a moral basis, gives rise to the
fact that two different kinds of exchanges may be recognized: exchanges of
items contained within a single category, and exchanges of items belonging to
different categories. For Tiv, these two different types of exchange are marked
by separate and distinct moral attitudes.
Exchanges within a category-particularly that of subsistence, the only one
intact today-excite no moral judgments beyond comments regarding the
"market" luck of one or both of the parties to the exchange. Exchanges between
categories, however, excite a completely different sort of moral reaction: the
man who exchanges lower category goods for higher category goods does not

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOHANNANJ

Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

65

brag about his market luck but about his skill in investment, his personal
magnetism, and his "strong heart." The man who exchanges high category
goods for lower rationalizes his action in terms of high-valued motivation
(most often the needs of his kinsmen).
To maintain this distinction between the two types of exchanges which
Tiv mark by different behavior and different values, I shall use separate words.
I shall call those exchanges of items within a single category "conveyances"
and those exchanges of items from one category to another "conversions."
(Steiner [1954] uses "translations" for what I have called conversions.) For
purposes of analysis, I shall maintain the dichotomy between the two words
representing types of exchanges more rigidly than would any Tiv between
the two, types of moral behavior in the normal course of living. Roughly, conveyances are-to Tiv-morally neutral; conversions have a strong moral quality in their rationalization.
The two institutions most intimately connected with conveyance are
markets and marriage, particularly exchange marriage. Both these are special
subjects and must be dealt with separately. The remainder of this section is
concerned with conversion.
Conversion, unlike conveyance, is not mere exchange of equivalent goods.
Because there is a definite moral dimension to conversion, it forms a strong
source of motivation to individual action. It is in the light of such motivation
that we must evaluate the fact that a very high percentage of autobiographies
collected from Tiv contain variants of this story: "When I was a very small
child, my kinsman gave me a baby chicken. I tended it carefully and when it
grew up it laid eggs and hatched out more chickens; I exchanged these chickens for a young nanny goat, who bore kids, which I put out with various kinsmen until I could exchange them for a cow. The cow bore calves, and eventually
I was able to sell the calves and procure a wife." Every successful man considers such a story one of the most important sequences of his biography; it
proves that he has been successful.
Tiv say that it was often possible in the old days to buy brass rods for
food, but usually only if the owner of the brass rods were short of food or required an unusually large amount to give a feast, making too heavy a drain on
his wives' food supplies. They also say that no honorable man would exchange
slaves for food-there were other means of getting food, especially along the
extended web of kinship. Although all Tiv with whom I discussed the matter
denied emphatically that Tiv would ever sell a kinsman, wife or ward to get
food (there are other reasons for which such sales were made), Akiga-in an
untranslated section of his book-mentions a famine which was so severe that,
as a last resort, men sold their daughters to foreigners in exchange for food so
that they could keep their sons alive.
Another conversion found among Tiv is marriage by bride wealth (which
kwase).
may be of several types, usually all lumped together and called kemrn
Although some forms of marriage by bride wealth were in the past actually
delayed exchanges (and today can be seen as substitutes for exchanges [L. and
P. Bohannan 1953:71-73]), to "receive a woman" (ngoho kwase)-to get

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

66

American Anthropologist

[57, 1955

wife or marriage ward without giving one in exchange-is every man's goal.
A wife is traditionally acquired by being granted a sister or cousin (any woman in one's marriage-ward sharing group-the ing61lgroup of Akiga 1939
and Abraham 1940) to exchange for a wife, either directly or by means of
bride wealth. A wife whom one acquires in any other way is not the concern of
one's marriage-ward sharing group because the woman or other property
exchanged for her did not belong to the marriage-ward group. The daughters
of such a wife are not divided among the members of a man's marriage-ward
group, but only among his sons. Such a wife is not only indicative of a man's
ability and success financially and personally, but rights in her are the only
form of property which is not ethically subject to the demands of his agnates.
Wives may sometimes be acquired by means of much more elaborate conversions. We discovered one case (in the course of a witchcraft moot) in which
a man two generations ago had traded a slave for a cow, which he in turn traded
for a marriage-ward to exchange for a wife; the distribution, as marriagewards, of the daughters of this marriage (among his sons rather than his marriage-ward group) was called into question. Sometimes Tiv acquire foreign
wives for cattle, from tribes whose custom it is to marry with cattle; the daughters of such women are considered to be Tiv, and can be exchanged in regular
Tiv fashion-they do not go into the "pool" of wards in the marriage-ward
group unless a man's agnates force him by threats of witchcraft to share his
"property" with them.
There are many social sanctions for conversion of one's wealth to higher
categories: Tiv are very scornful of a man who is merely rich in subsistence
goods (or, today, in money); they say that if he has not converted his goods
the reasons must be personal inadequacy. Tiv also say that jealous kinsmen of
a rich man will bewitch him and his people by means of certain fetishes in
order to make him expend his wealth in sacrifices to "repair" the fetishes.
Once the conversion is made, demands of kinsmen are no longer effective-at
least, they must take a new form.
A man who persists in a policy of converting his wealth into higher categories instead of letting it be dispersed by his dependents and kinsmen is said
to have a "strong heart" (tavershima). He is both feared and respected: because he is strong enough to resist the excessive demands of his kinsmen, but
still fulfills his kinship obligations generously, he is feared as a man of special,
potentially evil, talents (tsav).
III
Tiv notions of exchange and investment are among the hardest hit of all
their ideas by impact of Western ideology and by colonial economy and social
organization because these ideas are immediately and obviously in conflict
with Western ideas and practice. Today, Tiv are concerned because their categories of exchangeable items cannot be maintained. There are three main
reasons for this fact: (1) two of the categories today have no overt validity,
(2) many new commodities have been introduced which do not belong to any

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOHANNAN]

Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

67

category, and (3) money has provided a common denominator among the
categories which was previously lacking.
A moment's consideration makes it obvious that the category of prestige
goods, centering mainly about cattle, slaves and brass rods, has ceased to exist in material terms; although the category is maintained ideally. Slave dealing was prohibited from the first effective European control (about 1910);
brass rods are no longer generally available because the Administration regarded them primarily as currency and "replaced" them with pounds, shillings
and pence. Perhaps of even greater moment was the fact that in 1927 the highest
exchange category, that of rights in women, was dealt a crippling blow by Administrative abolition of exchange marriage and substitution of marriage by
bride wealth (payable in money) as the legal form. The category of subsistence
items is the only one that today can still be found in anything like its original
form.
European and African traders have introduced many new commodities
to Tivland, both of Nigerian and European manufacture, and have increased
many fold the quantity of some other commodities which were formerly present
in small amounts or small numbers. These goods, particularly European goods,
were introduced concurrently with money, and they are considered part of
the money complex. They do not enter into any formerly existing category,
but form their own category only very imperfectly. Thus, there are today many
more commodities than ever before which do not fit precisely into traditionally
structured exchange situations.
Finally, and perhaps more important, is the introduction of currency,
the very nature of which is to standardize the exchangeability value of every
item to a common scale. The introduction of currency was not only to be expected with the extension of Western economic ventures, it was hurried by
the Administration in its desire to collect tax in a convenient and readily
transportable form.--A money tax, payable by all adult males, was imposed
throughout Tivland by the end of the first World War. Imposition of this tax
coincided with the initiation of large-scale growing of beniseed (sesamum indicum) as a cash crop. Beniseed, although long known to Tiv, is today often
called by the word for "tax" or "tribute" (kpandegh).
Even though it is possible to consider brass rods as "currency" in the old
system, because they were a commodity whose exchange value was more farreaching than that of any other commodity and because they belonged to the
intermediary category, the introduction of coinage was not a simple "substitution" of one form of currency for another as was thought at the time to be the
case. Brass rods were, it is true, the main medium of conversion in the old days:
brass rods could be and sometimes were used to buy food, they could be and
often were used to get a wife. But the penetrability of brass rods into the other
categories of exchange, while more pronounced than that of any other commodity, did have limitations. Brass rods never provided a standard gauge
against which the exchangeability value of all commodities was reckoned, as
is the case with the coinage issued by the West African Currency Board.
Today all conversions and most conveyances are made in terms of money.

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

68

American Anthropologist

[57, 1955

Yet Tiv constantly express their distrust of money. They compare the monetary system to the subsistence system at great length, always to the disfavor
of the former. Money does not (they say) reproduce itself or bear seed. You
spend (vihi, literally "spoil") money and it's gone-a man can't spend a field,
and though he sacrifices a goat, it has already borne kids. Money, they feel,
is the root of much of their trouble.
Tiv, both desiring and distrusting money as they do, have attempted at
least in some contexts to relegate it to a fourth and lowest category of exchangeable goods. The logical end of such a classification, however, would be
either that money is exchanged only for money, or that it is exchanged only
for those European goods which were introduced more or less concurrently
with it. This is precisely the view that many Tiv elders expound. It is a view,
however, which cannot be maintained in the present situation in Tivland.
Concurrently with the introduction of money, pacification of the countryside and introduction of cash crops, a further factor arose: men's trading developed very rapidly. Men's trade, like women's, tends to be based on subsistence goods, but unlike women's, on goods which must be procured and
traded over long distances: smoked fish from the Benue and Katsina Ala
Rivers, camwood and kolas from Ogoja Province, and items such as cotton
which are grown in some parts of Tivland and not in others. Today men up to
the age of forty may carry their goods as much as 150 miles to market where
it commands the highest price. This trade is usually carried out in terms of
money, by semiprofessional traders. These men start with money and end with
money; their purpose is to increase their money. Tiv consider this legitimate
enterprise.
Tiv also say that women's trade is legitimate and sensible: a woman may
sell one type of food to buy another, or sell food to buy a waist cloth for herself
or small gifts and latter-day necessities for her children. All Tiv say that the
fact that these transactions are carried out in money is beside the point: the
woman has not made a conversion, for she has sold expendable subsistence
goods and bought expendable subsistence goods.
The difficulty arises when the semiprofessional traders begin trading in
the foodstuffs which were formerly the province solely of women. These men
may invest sums of their capital in food for resale; in fact, these young semiprofessional traders are the most active buyers and sellers of grain at Tiv
markets today, although women also speculate in grain and in yams to a
smaller extent. A young trader buys grain in small quantities-often in twoand three-penny lots-from women who are selling it in the market. He collects this grain, may hold it for a while and almost certainly will transport it
to another market for sale either to another middleman or to the Hau'saor Ibo
lorry drivers who visit the larger markets to buy food for export to the overpopulated areas of the Eastern Provinces or the new urban areas in Tivland.
Both the trade carried on by women and that carried on by these ambitious young professional traders are considered admirable by Tiv. The trader
is not granted so favorable a position in Tiv society as he is in some other West
African societies, and mere monetary or subsistence wealth is not sufficient in

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

BOHANNAN]

Exchange and Investment among the Tiv

69

itself to afford great prestige. Trade of women stays within the category of
subsistence (if one considers the end in view and discounts the presence of
money, as Tiv do in the situation), while the trade of the professionals stays
within the monetary category.
Yet Tiv see truckload after truckload of foodstuffs driven away from their
large markets every fifth day. They say that food is less plentiful today than
it was in the past, though more land is being farmed. Tiv elders deplore this
situation and know what is happening, but they do not know just where to
fix the blame. In attempts to do something about it, they sometimes announce
that no women are to sell any food at all. But when their wives disobey them,
men do not really feel that they were wrong to have done so. Tiv sometimes
discriminate against non-Tiv traders in attempts to stop export of food, but
their actions are seldom upheld by the courts to which the outsiders scurry,
and in any case Tiv themselves are occupied in the export of food. In their
condemnation of the situation which is depriving them of their food faster
than they are able to increase production, Tiv elders always curse money itself.
It is money which, as the instrument for selling one's life subsistence, is responsible for the worsened situation-money and the Europeans who brought
it.
Yet they cannot fix the blame or stop the situation. When women sell to
middlemen, Tiv class this exchange in the category of subsistence exchange.
When middlemen sell to other middlemen or exporters, it falls within the ethics
of money trade. That the two spheres have overlapped they find mysterious
and frustrating, and in the nature of money. Yet, so long as a woman does not
sell too much food, there is no feeling that she has done wrong; so long as a
man buys a commodity with money and sells it for money, he has done nothing
blameworthy.
Of even greater concern to Tiv is the influence money has had on marriage
institutions, by affecting the interchange of rights in women. In response to
what appeared superficially to be popular demand, the Administration (encouraged by the Missions and with the apparent concurrence of the tribal
councils) abolished exchange marriage and substituted for it a form of marriage by bride wealth. It is the writer's opinion that both Tiv and Administration today believe this action to have been precipitate and ill-advised. Today
every woman's guardian, in accepting money as bride wealth, feels that he is
converting down. Although attempts are made to spend money which is received in bride wealth to acquire brides for one's self and one's sons, it is in
the nature of money, Tiv insist, that this is most difficult to accomplish. The
good man still spends his bride wealth receipts for brides-but good men are
not so numerous as would be desirable. Tiv deplore the fact that they are required to "sell" (te) their daughters and "buy" (yam, but more euphemistically
kern,to accumulate) wives. It smacks, they tell the investigator in low tones,
of slavery. There is no dignity in it since the possibility of converting a bridewealth marriage into an exchange marriage has been removed.
The fact that Tiv, in the face of the introduction of a money economy,
have retained the motivations commensurate with their old ideology of invest-

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

70

American Anthropologist

[57, 1955]

ment based on a scheme of the discreteness of several categories of exchangeable items, hierarchically arranged, has created several difficulties and inconsistencies. It is considered admirable to invest one's wealth in wives and children-the least expendable form of wealth traditionally known to Tiv, and
that form most productive of further wealth.
But Tiv have come upon a simple paradox: today it is easy to sell subsistence goods for money to buy prestige articles and women, thereby aggrandizing oneself at a rapid rate. The food so sold is exported, decreasing the amount
of subsistence goods available for consumption. On the other hand, the number of women is limited. The result is that bride wealth gets higher-the price
becomes inflated. Under these conditions, as Tiv attempt to become
of
womern
more and more wealthy in people, they are merely selling more and more of
their foodstuffs and subsistence goods, leaving less and less for their own consumption.
Indigenous Tiv ideas of the sort we would call economic not only formed a
basis for their intellectual ordering of their economic exchanges, but also supply motivation for their personal economic striving. These ideas are inconsistent with a monetary economy on the fringe of industrial society. Tiv, to
whom these are not "economic ideas" but a "natural" ordering of phenomena
and behavior, tend to see the difficulty as being with the monetary economy.
The ethnographer can only look on and attempt to understand the ideas and
motivations, knowing that the discrepancy between ideas and the actual situation will become greater until one is smashed and then adapted to suit the
other-and he knows also that the conclusion is foregone.
NOTES
months' research was carried out between July 1949 and January 1953 among
the Tiv, under the auspices of the Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, with supplementary grants from the Colonial Social Science
Research Council and the Government of Nigeria, to all of which bodies grateful acknowledgment
is made.
2This fact may be a function of the time observations were made, which was a time of
inflation in Tivland as elsewhere.
3 I believe Akiga to be giving examples of a category rather than quoting prices here. But the
price stability may have been generally recognized in the pre-money days of stable exchange to
which Akiga refers.
1 Twenty-six

REFERENCES CITED
R. C.
ABRAHAM,
1940 The Tiv people. 2nd ed. London, Crown Agents.
AKIGA
1939 Akiga's story. Translated by Rupert East. London, Oxford University Press.
For International African Institute.
BOHANNAN, PAUL

1954 Tiv farm and settlement. London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office. In press.
BOHANNAN,
LAURAand PAUL
1953 The Tiv of central Nigeria. London, International African Institute.
STEINER,FRANZ
1954 Notes on comparative economics. British Journal of Sociology. Forthcoming.

This content downloaded on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:10:24 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions